PATERNITY, U.S.A.
by
Frederick D. Malkinson
Delivered to
The Chicago Literary Club
April 5, 1999
George Washington was not an uncontroversial figure when he died. Especially during
his high profile presidential years, his judgment and integrity were widely assailed, and he was
repeatedly criticized for the employment of doubtful constitutional means to evade or silence his
enemies. The extremes in which Washington was held during the course of his public career
are well exemplified by just two of an incredible number of press reports. On June 20, 1791, the
"Connecticut Courant" stated: "Many a private man might make a great President; but will there
ever be a President who will make so great a man as WASHINGTON?" The following appeared
on December 23, 1796, in the Philadelphia "Aurora": "If ever a nation was debauched by a man,
the American nation has been debauched by WASHINGTON. If ever a nation was deceived by a
man, the American nation has been deceived by WASHINGTON. Let his conduct.....serve to be
a warning that no man may be an idol.....let the history of the Federal government instruct
mankind, that the masque of patriotism may be worn to conceal the foulest designs against the
liberties of the people."
On the one hand, Washington's supporters, a majority of the population, could readily
enumerate his many virtues and the sources of their admiration. Physically, Washington was a
handsome and commanding figure, standing well over 6 feet tall in an age when he towered over
most of his contemporaries. Even in London it was said that, "Not a King in Europe but would
look like a valet de chambre by his side". He was intelligent, judicious, dignified and "had a
quality of assured competence that made men ready to follow him". During the French and
Indian and the Revolutionary wars he took the most extreme, even reckless risks, but bullets that
tore his clothing and killed his horses always left him unscathed. One of the officers in his
frontier corps wrote of the 26-year old Washington: "In our earliest infancy you took us under
your tuition, trained us in the practice of that discipline which alone can constitute good
troops.....Your steady adherence to impartial justice, your quick discernment and invariable
regard to merit.....first heightened our natural emulation, and our desire to excel." Washington
was a born leader, but variously described as modest, courteous and eminently thoughtful. He
blended amiability and reserve and was considered by most to be a charming and gregarious
host and conversationalist.
Washington's main accomplishments during the Revolutionary War were to keep the
Continental Army intact and a constant threat to, or thorn in the side of, the British troops. He
was also forced to make decisions with much wider implications than the purely military ones.
Since the Continental Congress officially gave him powers to determine certain civilian concerns,
Washington became, while Commander-in-Chief, as much of a chief executive as the colonies
then had. These responsibilities, and his many years in public view, made Washington a most
likely candidate to lead a post-war government. At the end of the War, his spontaneous
resignation as Commander-in-Chief, Cincinnatus style, was a momentous and magnanimous
step that almost none of history's earlier statesmen-warriors had taken.
Following Washington's unanimous election by the electors, he essentially had to invent
the presidency as he pursued his years in office, establishing numerous precedents that continue
to the present day. Despite growing factionalism and increasing political attacks, Washington
was overwhelmingly re-elected for a second term. Throughout, Washington provided the
leadership and sense of purpose and coherence needed for the United States' newly synthesized
form of democratic government. As Gary Wills has stated: "Washington has embodied during
his lifetime, the American character.....he demonstrated the possibility of and the relationship
between public and private virtues in America". As for Washington's willingness to relinquish the
power of the presidency after his second term, his erstwhile enemy, George III, said that his
retirement from the presidency, coupled with his resignation as Commander-in-Chief fourteen
years earlier: "placed him in a light the most distinguished of any man living", and that he was
"the greatest character of the age".
Needless to say, Washington's detractors -- and there were large numbers, both here and
abroad -- had very different assessments of the man and his accomplishments. Washington was
depicted as an individual who often lacked control of his emotions and was noted for his volcanic
temper, a man educated only through the equivalent of the primary grade level who showed little
evidence of intellectual growth thereafter. He was seen as overly ambitious, yearning for glory,
and especially in his land dealings, strongly motivated by acquisitive tendencies. He was
portrayed as indifferent to religion, excessively cruel in his campaigns against the Indians, and "a
man who should be remembered as a slave holder and.....whose career owed much simply to
good luck" as Wesley Frank Craven has written.
Again, on a personal level, Washington was observed to be an overly proud man,
somewhat vain, painfully sensitive to criticism and quick to blame his shortcomings as a military
leader on his superiors or his subordinates. He often appeared austere, almost glacial, was
neither fluent nor eloquent and was not warm in his affections. Edward Thornton, the post-war
secretary to the British ambassador, described Washington as follows: "Of his private character
I can say but little positive. I have never heard of any truly noble, generous, or disinterested
action of his; he has very few who are on terms of intimate and unreserved friendship.....".
There were many critics not only of Washington's personal characteristics but of
numerous actions he took during his almost three decades of public life. Early in his military
career on the western frontier in the 1750's, Washington, overlooking the fact that England and
France were not at war, led an attack on a small party of Frenchmen, killing ten and taking the
rest prisoner, only to find that he had set upon a peaceful diplomatic mission and had killed its
leader. The French, infuriated, responded by launching a massive attack on Fort Necessity,
which Washington had incredibly constructed in a valley overshadowed by forests and hills from
which the French and their Indian allies poured down a withering and decisive fire. In the rain the
fort's roof leaked, ruining the gunpowder. Washington surrendered after a third of his force of
several hundred men lay dead or wounded. The defeat won the French many new Indian allies,
and an English pamphleteer wrote that Washington's surrender was "the most infamous a British
subject ever put his hand to". In 1756, Washington commanded 1000 men in Virginia to battle
increasing Indian raids and massacres on the frontier. Imposing strict discipline, he ordered
brutal floggings of his men for looting, swearing, gambling and other similar offenses. His
recruiting practices and his cashiering of men at pleasure, even for cheating at cards, came
under sharp criticism by the Virginia House of Burgesses. The "Virginia Gazette" attacked him
for abusing his men, while others accused him of long absences from the front while settlers
were killed and their houses burned. At the conclusion of over five years of frontier military
service, Washington never won more than a skirmish, lost a fort, surrendered a regiment and
utterly failed in his quest to protect Virginia's frontier families against Indian attacks. In 1758, he
resigned his commission.
Washington's later leadership of the Continental army was marked by recurrent criticism
from his soldiers, his officers and members of Congress. In the first four years of the war he lost
every major engagement. His men were forced to retreat so often that Washington came to be
called "the master of the retrograde maneuver". The final defeat of the British was largely the
result of their inept leadership (they utilized four commanders-in-chief in eight years), incredibly
long supply lines across the Atlantic ocean, the gigantic size of the American battlefield, and
Washington's critical assistance from the French army and fleet at Yorktown. For a final
sardonic evaluation of Washington's role in the Revolution, John Adams wrote: "The history of
our Revolution will be one continued lie from one end to the other. The essence of the whole will
be that Dr. Franklin's electric rod smote the earth and out sprung General Washington. That
Franklin electrised him with his rod, and thenceforth these two conducted all the policy
negotiations, legislatures, and war".
Washington's acts and decisions as our first president cannot be summarized here. But
it was during these years (1789-97) that criticism of Washington, with opposition to many of his
policies, reached a crescendo. Chief among many of these were the rise of political factionalism
and Washington's leaning toward Federalism versus the Republicans, his disgraceful sacking of
Edmond Randolph, Secretary of State, his excise taxes on alcoholic beverages which resulted in
the Whiskey Rebellion and, particularly, his support of the Jay treaty with England, which
infuriated the Republicans and many in the general population with their strong bias toward
France as America's old ally. Repeated unlawful advances by the U.S. Treasury of "expense"
monies to Washington, far exceeding his presidential salary, further tarnished his luster in the
eyes of many. His seeming monarchical behavior occasioned the "National Gazette" to write of
him: "He holds levees like a King, makes treaties like a King, answers petitions like a King.....and
swallows adulation like a King.....". When Washington left the president's office in 1797,
Benjamin Bache wrote in the "Aurora": "If ever there was a period for rejoicing, it is this
moment".
Washington's retirement to Mount Vernon from the presidency was short-lived. He died on
December 14, 1799, after a brief bout of quinsy, an acute infection of the throat with severe
progressive swelling which ultimately cut off his airway. After his death controversial
assessments of Washington's life and career continued, ranging from Henry Lee's famous and
fulsome phrase: "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen" to Thomas
Paine's vitriolic quatrain. Imprisoned during the French Revolution, Paine bore continued anger
toward Washington who, on the one hand, had had his officers read sections of Paine's fiercely
uplifting pamphlet, "The American Crisis", to his troops during the Revolutionary War but, on the
other hand, had refused to intercede on the imprisoned Paine's behalf despite the fact that Paine
held American citizenship. Paine wrote:
"Take from the mine the coldest hardest stone,
It needs no fashion, it is Washington;
But if you chisel, let your strokes be rude,
And on his breast engrave
Suddenly, in January, 1800, just one month after Washington's demise, to paraphrase the
title of a famous Ivan Albright painting, there suddenly came into the literary world a soul called
Mason Locke Weems. Although he wrote largely in the genre of what we call today historical
fiction, Weems nonetheless was destined to write the most widely read, longest printed, and
arguably the most influential biography ever published in the United States. The first biography
ever to be devoted to Washington, it still remains today in new volumes on bookstore shelves
two hundred years after Washington's death.
Mason Locke Weems was born on October 1, 1759, in Herring Creek near Annapolis,
Maryland. He attended Kent County School in Chestertown, near Baltimore, and at the age of
fourteen was sent to Great Britain to study medicine, although there is no clear evidence that he
ever received a medical degree. He returned to the colonies in 1776, but there is no record of
how he spent the Revolutionary War years. During that time, however, he came under the
influence of Dr. William Smith, who had become rector at Chestertown in 1779 as well as head
of the Kent County School. It appears that Weems' early talents for speech-making, his
unbridled imagination, and his talents for anecdotes decided him to consider an alternate career
to medicine. Through Smith's influence he was promised a church, and in 1782 he returned to
London to study for the clergy. In 1784, having been ordained in the Anglican Church and
admitted to the priesthood by the Archbishop of Canterbury, he returned to Maryland and his
parish. By this time, however, post-war disaffection with the Anglican church had decimated
clerical prerogatives, and the Church's poll tax had been abolished. Although Weems kept his
parish for several years, he was forced to establish a girls' school to support himself. But both
his liberal views (he had freed slaves left to him at his father's death, for example) and his newly
undertaken crusading zeal, especially for temperance, began to offend many of his parishioners.
Finally, in 1792, he abruptly left his pulpit and embarked on more than a 30-year career as an
author, traveling book seller, and "purveyor of morality". He became an itinerant foot peddler,
pack on back, still dressed in clerical garb and charming his way to innumerable meals and offers
of overnight stays during his travels. On occasion he was not loathe to take up the duties of the
cloth again when requested to do so in locales bereft of church and clergy. Passage on foot was
difficult with the prevalent obstacles of bad weather, poor roads, and swamps and rivers to ford,
but Weems was an intrepid traveler.
In 1793 he established an association - to last a lifetime - with Mathew Carey, a famed
printer, publisher and author in Philadelphia, receiving from Carey a generous and varied stock of
books to be sold. His sales travels now took him incessantly back and forth from New York City
to as far south as Virginia.
In 1795 Weems married Fanny Ewall, daughter of an affluent tobacco merchant whom
Weems had met on his travels to Virginia. By that time he had earned enough money to
purchase a home in Dumfries, Virginia, a town only 18 miles from Mount Vernon. The Ewall's
home, Bel Air, was nearby and the Ewalls were related to Washington's mother's family. Since
Washington was an occasional visitor to Bel Air, Weems achieved a certain, at least second-hand contact with and knowledge of Washington, although whether the two were actually
acquainted is uncertain. However, in 1796 Weems organized a symposium, chaired by Benjamin
Franklin, entitled "The Immortal Mentor, or Man's Unerring Guide to a Healthy, Wealthy, and
Happy Life". The resulting tract was devoted "to the home virtues and the simple life", and
Washington was persuaded to contribute to the title page, which he did as follows: "I have
perused it with singular satisfaction and hesitate not to say that it is, in my opinion at least, an
invaluable compilation. I cannot but hope that a book whose contents do so much credit to its
title will meet a very generous patronage".
At about this time Weems finally gave up his pedestrian ways and invested in a covered
"Jersey Waggon", in which he carried a bookcase and a violin and which enabled him to extend
his business trips as far south as Savannah, Georgia. Undaunted by "roads horrid and suns
torrid" and, depending upon the occasion, he was always ready to deliver a political oration, a
sermon or a solo fiddle concert. With the crowd he had attracted he would then sell his books
from the wagon.
Weems now began writing his next manuscript in what was to be a series of pamphlets.
Entitled "The Philanthropist: or a Good Twenty-five Cents Worth of Political Love Powder for
Honest Adamsites and Jeffersonites", it was a protest against factionalism, which had already
arisen between Federalists and Republicans, especially during Washington's second term. He
added a jingoistic paean of praise to the military, and detailed the first of what would be many
elaborate and fanciful tales in his later writings. Washington, well-known for his abhorrence of
factionalism and the beginning rise of political parties, wrote Weems as follows in August, 1799:
"Much indeed is it to be wished that the Sentiments contained in your pamphlet, and the doctrine
it endeavors to inculcate, were more prevalent. Happy would it be for this Country at least, if
they were so".
As early as 1797 Weems had become interested in books about Revolutionary War
heroes, having found on his travels that the public was repeatedly asking for them. Since no
other author was attempting to meet this demand, Weems began to write about Washington and
informed Carey that cheap books on Revolutionary War heroes would sell well: "People here
think nothing of giving.....(their quarter of a dollar) for anything that pleases their fancy. Let us
give them something worth their money". On June 24, 1799, he wrote Carey again: "I have
nearly ready for the press a piece christened ..."The Beauties of Washington". Tis artfully drawn up,
enlivened with anecdotes, and in my humble opinion, marvelously fitted (to American tastes). What
say you to printing it for me and ordering a copper plate Frontispiece of that Heroe, something in
this way. George Washington Esq. The Guardian Angel of his Country. "Go thy way old George.
Die when thou wilt we shall never look upon thy like again".
N.B. The whole will make but four sheets and will sell like flaxseed at a quarter of a
dollar. I could make you a world of pence and popularity by it."
One month after Washington's death, Weems wrote Carey again: "I've something to
whisper in your lug. Washington, you know is gone! Millions are gaping to read something about
him. I am very nearly primed and cocked for em. 6 months ago I set myself to collect anecdotes of
him. My plan! I give his history, sufficiently minute-I accompany him from his start, thro the
French and Indian and British or Revolutionary wars, to the President's chair, to the throne in the
hearts of 5,000,000 People. I then go to show that his unparalleled rise and elevation were
owing to Great Virtues. 1 His Veneration for the Deity, or Religious Principles. 2 His Patriotism.
3rd His Magninmity. 4 His Industry. 5 His Temperance and Sobriety. 6 His Justice (etc., etc.).
Thus I hold up his great Virtues.....to the imitation of Our Youth. All this I have lined and enlivend
with Anecdotes apropos interesting and Entertaining. I have read it to several
Gentlemen whom I thought judges, such as Presbyterian Clergymen, Classical Scholars (etc.,
etc.) and they all commend it much.....We may sell it with great rapidity for 25 or 37 Cents and it
wd not cost 10.....I am thinking you could vend it admirably: as it would be the first. I can send it
on, half of it, Immediately".
Carey, however, expressed much less interest in the manuscript than Weems. At this
point Weems made his own arrangement for publication in February, 1800. The first printing was
from Baltimore, the second from Georgetown, and the third and fourth, finally arranged by a
repentant Carey, from Philadelphia. Weems centered the book principally on Washington's early
years and stated in his preface that he was writing primarily for both children and adults. He then
stated his theory of biography: "True he has been seen in greatness: but it is only the
greatness of public character, which is no evidence of true greatness; for a public
character is often an artificial one.....It is not, then in the glare of public, but in the shade
of private life that we are to look for the man....."
The 80-page pamphlet was entitled "A History of the Life and Death, Virtues and Exploits
of General George Washington; dedicated to Mrs. Washington, by the Rev. M.L. Weems of
Dumfries". For the first six years the text was not substantially changed. By 1808, however, with
the publication of the sixth edition, the text now numbered about 250 pages and was close to its
final form. The new title was, "The Life of George Washington, With Curious Anecdotes Equally
Honorable to Himself and Exemplary to His Young Countrymen". Weems was self-described on
the title page as "the Former Rector of Mt. Vernon Parish", a patently non-existent parish. Of this
expanded edition, one recent Weems biographer wrote that "it bubbled with intimate anecdotes
of Washington's boyhood, the authenticity of which is as doubtful as Weems' assumed
rectorship". By 1810 this book was a runaway best seller, having sold over 50,000 copies in a
largely illiterate population. By 1825 the Washington biography had reached its 29th printing and,
to this date, has gone through more than eighty.
Although Weems had made at least a small fortune on his Washington biography, he
continued his itinerant ways, preaching, playing his fiddle, and selling books-his own and those of
many other authors, especially novels, political and religious tracts and volumes of poetry. Many
more publications - 26 in all - were to come from Weems' own pen as well. His biography of
Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox", published in 1810 was his second most popular book,
remaining widely sold and repeatedly printed into the 1890's. He published additional
biographies of Benjamin Franklin in 1815 and William Penn in 1822, as well as many pamphlets
condemning sundry vices, such as "God's Revenge Against Murder" (1807), "The Drunkard's
Looking Glass" (1812), "God's Revenge Against Adultery" (1815), "God's Revenge Against
Dueling" (1820), and the "Bad Wife's Looking Glass" (1823). As usual these tracts were laced
with many lively, incredibly embellished anecdotes, or stories that were totally
fabricated.
By now Weems had memorized major portions of the Bible, the Hymnal and the Book of
Prayer so that he could conduct impromptu services without a book. This he often did on village
squares or the porch of a store or wherever he could attract a crowd of people. As he traveled
the same routes repeatedly he gradually became well-known for his anecdotes, his sense of
humor and his pious views. Harold Kellock writes: "In all his travels he never failed to make
chance events serve the purpose of pushing his wares before the public. If he was ready for a
fair or a church service, he was equally ready to make a drunkard on the street or a broken
gamester the theme of a homily that would lead to the sale of his ever-ready pamphlets".
Sometimes Weems even assumed an actor's role to advance sales. He might enter a tavern, for
example, play the role of a tippler going through successive stages of drunkenness, and end up
selling numerous copies of his tract on alcoholism to his delighted audience.
The fame of Weems' biography of Washington garnered him a number of invitations to
address various state legislatures, since much of the book also contained a true and detailed
history of Washington's public career. He delivered a practiced and highly popular oration
evoking the virtues of Washington's life and deeds, including a paean of praise for the
Republican form of government and a thunderous critique of the tyranny and dangers of
monarchy. He was invited later on to give this same address to the House of Representatives in
Washington, D.C.
In most of his last fifteen years Weems continued to travel, to hone his own unparalleled
salesmanship, to preach whenever the opportunity arose, and to write. By this time he was well
known throughout all of his travel routes up and down the East coast and, as Kellock
states:....."Many lively tales and legends were woven about him who had been himself the
originator of so much American folklore." Weems became inactive in the last few years of his
life, though by that time he had accumulated some wealth and wide fame as a biographer and
pamphleteer. In 1825 he died at the age of 66 in Beaufort, South Carolina, and was buried at Bel
Air, the family home in Virginia.
With the publication of Weems' "Washington", the first of its subject, Weems created a
national symbol and a model hero as an emblem for a brand new form of government, an
unproven experiment in broad-based democracy. At that time this country had no national
literature, no national written history, and no common heritage after renouncing that shared with
England. The individual states still pitted themselves occasionally against the sovereignty of the
Federal government and at times even threatened secession. Weems' immensely popular book
was, in a sense, a pro-Federalist tract since it established Washington as "an American first, a
Virginian second". Further, the importance of Weems' "Washington" is best understood in the
context of its times. Current belief in the 18th and early 19th centuries was that persons and
personalities were the sole agents of historical change and development. Emerson wrote in
1841: "There is properly no History, only Biography". Thomas Carlyle stated that: "The history
of the world is but the biography of great men". In this country specially ordained roles had been
ascribed to certain early settlers, such as John Winthrop and William Bradford. Later the
nation's founders were similarly enshrined. But, marking the origin of the Republic, Washington
was widely seen as the hero who had directly led the states to that national union through his
successive roles as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, presiding officer of the
Constitutional Congress and first elected president.
In the literature of Weems' times, patriotic fervor and ideology, along with outright myth
making, often supplanted or embellished simple facts. As Peter Conn has stated...."biographies
of American heroes were often mere exercises in secular piety and hero worship". Anticipating
Emerson's later statement, Weems believed that for the well-known subjects of his biographies,
the meaning of the past could best be uncovered through narratives of their lives, deeds,
statements and writings. In Washington's case he also wanted to emphasize his virtues in
private life as a model for all Americans, especially young Americans, though little was known
about Washington's youth or private life at that time. Weems wrote: "Of those private deeds of
Washington very little has been said. In most of the elegant orations pronounced to his praise,
you see nothing of Washington the dutiful son - the affectionate brother - the cheerful
schoolboy - the diligent surveyor - the neat draftsman - the laborious farmer - the widow's
husband - the orphan's father - the poor man's friend. No! This is not the Washington you see;
tis only Washington the HERO, and the Demigod.....". Weems focused on Washington's private
virtues, "for in these every youth is interested, because in these every youth may become a
Washington", sentiments that well displayed Weems' sensitivity to his prospective
audience.
In his biography Weems did his best to fill in these various blanks, interviewing many friends,
acquaintances and relatives of Washington who had known him from early childhood. He was
also in contact with Bushrod Washington, George Washington's literary executor. Weems wrote
his biography with verve, humor and occasionally Homeric prose, interlarded with colloquial
dialogue. The book was vastly embellished with fanciful events and freshly conceived myths
destined to take on extraordinary lives of their own. Illustrative of myth and characteristic of
Weems' prose, there is no more famous American legend than his fabricated story of George
Washington and the cherry tree, which first appeared in the 1808 6th edition of the biography,
and was allegedly told to Weems by a distant relative of Washington's. Six-year old George,
armed with a new hatchet "unluckily tried the edge.....on the body of a beautiful young English
cherry-tree which he barked terribly.....". The next morning his father discovered the tragedy and
nobody could tell him anything about it. When George and his hatchet appeared, his father
asked him if he knew who had killed his cherry tree. "This was a tough
question.....but.....looking at his father, with the sweet face of youth brightened with the
inexpressible charm of all-conquering youth, he bravely cried out, "I can't tell a lie, Pa; you know I
can't tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet" - "Run to my arms, you dearest boy", cried his father in
transports, run to my arms; glad am I, George, that you killed my tree; for you have paid me for it
a thousandfold. Such an act of heroism in my son, is more worth than a thousand trees, though
blossomed with silver, and their fruits of purest gold."
Although this and other Weems myths were later included in the widely read McDuffey's
reader, one might still ask why the cherry tree story, for one, survives. Weems probably meant
only to illustrate the virtue of Washington's strict honesty by this tale, but much has been written
in general about mythology in terms of heroes, history, national origins and religious beliefs.
Myths are reminiscent of dreams, employ fantasy, produce their own kind of logic and distort
normal relationships to say nothing, frequently, of truth. Of national myths James Robertson has
written: "All societies depend for their continuity, for their very existence, on common
assumptions, common forms of communications, common.....thoughts and ideas, common
patterns of behavior and ritual, and a common inheritance."
The myth analysts have had a field day with their various interpretations of the cherry tree
legend. For just one example, Robertson writes: "The story implies the challenge and thrill of a
child disobeying the injunction or (threatening) something the parent treasures..... The act was
symbolic-the cherry tree was an English tree. The father, alias George III, is depicted as
displaying older, autocratic ways. Washington will defy these old ways and the authorities.....
The immigrant to America had to defy the family and the familiar, destroy the treasured
possession of the family tree and community in order to leave them and venture into the New
World..... The (cherry tree) story fulfills the wish of every rebellious child that rebellion and
independence will be met with approval and will result in being once again enfolded in the arms
of the father". Lastly Robertson pointed out that the act of cutting a tree was also the very act
Americans know as that of "civilizing and settling virgin land - necessary to build a log cabin,
supply fuel for warmth and cooking, build stockades and split rails for fences".
Several other fanciful stories about Washington, the boy and the man, appeared in the
Weems biography. These included the cabbage-seed story-seeds when planted later sprouted
into the words "George Washington" leaving young George with "the good spirit of God ingrafted
on his heart". This story was plagiarized from James Beatties' commemoration of his dead son
published in Scotland in 1799. Other fables included Washington's mother's dream of her house
afire, bravely extinguished by five-year old George; the account of the admirable young athlete,
George, who was often seen to throw a stone across the Rappahannock; the story of the
"famous Indian warrior" who fired seventeen times at Washington, but was mysteriously unable
to hit him; Washington's wildly overblown death scene, obviously meant to imply a second
resurrection with a detailed description of his ascent to heaven where Benjamin Franklin and
other great patriots "embrace him in transports of tenderness unutterable"; the Valley Forge
prayer story, and several others.
The Valley Forge anecdote is especially interesting as an impressive and classic example of how
a totally mythical event can be transformed into actual historical reality. Weems wrote".....one (of
the Valley Forge inhabitants).....was passing thoughtfully the edge of a wood near the (army)
camp, heard low sounds.....paused to listen and.....saw Washington engaged in prayer.....on
returning home (he) told his family he knew the Americans would succeed, for their leader did not
trust in his own strength, but sought aid from the Hearer of (his) prayer". In actuality Washington
attended church infrequently, was never seen to kneel in prayer, may well have been a deist, and
in his writings frequently invoked Providence, but not God. The passerby, a Quaker, was later
claimed by others to be Isaac Potts, who came into possession of a house in Valley Forge at the
end of the Revolutionary War, but was nowhere near this area in the winter of 1777.
Nonetheless the power and allure of this mythic event first led to a related bronze inscription
placed on the Sub-Treasury building in New York City, followed by the later conversion of the
Potts' home into a shrine and the subsequent laying of the cornerstone of the Washington
Memorial Chapel in Valley Forge in 1903. Then in 1928 the government issued a red two cent
stamp showing Washington praying at Valley Forge, a stamp that adorned the regular mails for
many years until the first class postage rate was increased to three cents. Finally, in
Washington, D.C., in 1955, a private chapel for members of Congress was opened which
contained, as its principal artistic feature, a stained glass window depicting the kneeling figure of
Washington in prayer at Valley Forge.
For almost the entire 19th century a large number of Washington's biographers continued to
reproduce Weems' legendary materials in their own writings. One of them, who had read
Weems' "Washington" at age 10, said of the book: "It was true to its great office.....and that was,
to make the American youth feel and believe that Washington was the greatest man that ever
lived.....and that the country he delivered was the greatest country on the globe". Interestingly,
President-elect Abraham Lincoln addressed the New Jersey Senate on February 21, 1861, as
follows: "May I be pardoned if, upon this occasion, I mention that away back in my childhood.....I
got hold of a small book,.....Weems' "Life of Washington". I remember all the accounts
there.....of the.....struggles for the liberties of the country". Contemporary sources state that
Weems' "Washington", which Lincoln read repeatedly, may have been the only book he owned
as a young man. It appears that the book provided Lincoln with a model of self-discipline and
both characterological and intellectual influences as an upholder of virtue and constitutional
order. Finally, although the validity of some of Weems' anecdotes was questioned even during
his lifetime and, indeed, entirely discounted by some, a children's book printed as recently as
1954 stated: "Stories about George Washington as a boy have been retold so often through the
years that even though we're not sure they really did happen, they have become a part of the
story of America. And they do tell us something of the kind of boy he was".
In sum, Weems supplied distinct needs for the American imagination in the nineteenth
century. His remarkable success reflects his exalted subject matter and the style of his writing.
He succeeded much more than many who followed in putting a human face on his hero. As
Marcus Cunliffe has written: "(Weems) should be seen in context, as a stage in the history of
American nationalism; of popular and juvenile literature;.....American nationalism was a self-conscious creation, and George Washington was its chief symbol. Weems had discovered in his
many travels what Americans wanted to read and the Washington biography satisfied all of their
desires: romanticism, patriotism, religion, epic narrative, and humor. He also was the first to tell
American children about the hero's childhood, and for this his anecdotes were essential
illustrations of Washington's traits and character in a young country still lacking a folklore of its
own. The myths all expressed some generally perceived truth about their subject as well as
practical lessons that his actions held for other Americans. Weems' "Washington" also made
available some of Washington's most notable speeches and addresses at a time when these
were not readily available in print, thereby memorializing brilliantly his farewell address and other
great rhetorical moments that marked Washington's career.
Briefly, what of Weems the man? He was self-assured, endearing, high-spirited, an
inveterate wanderer-though apparently an affectionate husband and father - an extravagant
writer, salesman par excellence, a flamboyant, inveterate preacher, and a bit of the confidence
man. As Cunliffe says: "We warm to him, though, because he is buoyant, bizarre and - a little
pathetic". Peter Onuf, in his current introduction to Weems' ninth edition of the Washington
biography writes: "Weems' humble readers knew that, in the final accounting, they were the true
custodians of Washington's character and reputation. Only by sustaining and strengthening the
Union, by preserving and extending the stage on which the rising generation of young patriots
would play their own roles, could Americans become the "GREAT AND HAPPY NATION" that
George Washington envisioned.
Finally, since the "Life of Washington" also included much inspired and inspiring rhetoric
from selected passages of Washington's numerous addresses, "Weems' great achievement was
to.....fashion a.....father figure whose "voice" would resonate for succeeding
generations.....Weems played an essential role in fabricating the image of Washington that has
since dominated the American historical imagination". It was Weems who secured Washington's
everlasting fame, and who thereby so successfully and securely established himself as the father
of the father of his country.
Bibliography
1. Weems, Mason Locke. "The Life of Washington" (A new edition with primary documents and
introduction by Peter S. Onuf). M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, New York, 1996, 196
pages.
2. Van Tassel, David D. "The Legend Maker". American Heritage , February, 1962. Pages 58-9; 89-94.
3. Randall, Willard Sterne. "George Washington: A Life". Henry Holt and Co., New York, 1997.
548 pages.
4. Brookhiser, Richard. "Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington". Free Press
Paperbacks, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1996. 230 pages.
5. Flexner, James Thomas. "Washington The Indispensable Man". Little, Brown and Company,
Boston, 1974. 423 pages.
6. Smith, Richard Norton. "Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation."
Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, 1993. 424 pages.
7. Kellock, Harold. Parson Weems of the Cherry-Tree". The Century Company. New York,
1928. 212 pages.
8. Bryan, William Alfred. "The Genesis of Weems' "Life of Washington". Americana 36:147-165, 1942.
9. Bryan, William Alfred. "George Washington in American Literature, 1775-1865." Columbia
University Press, New York, 1952. 280 pages.
10.Cunliffe, Marcus, Ed. "Mason L. Weems' "The Life of Washington". Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1962. 226 pages.
11.Boorstin, Daniel J. "The Americans. The National Experience." Random House, New York,
1965. Pages 327-356.